Ms. Marzoni's Class

Dinosaurs!!

2012-01-29T13:08:00.001-06:00

This week we learned about DINOSAURS!!! This may have been one of the students' favorite units yet!

We displayed these dinosaur drawings to give us a good reference as we learned about herbivores and carnivores. The students enjoyed learning all about these prehistoric creatures. They learned that dinosaur means "terrible lizard" and they also learned about the job of a paleontologist. We may have some future fossil hunters in our class!

The students loved learning the names of the dinosaurs, some of our favorites were the Tyrannosaurs Rex, Stegosaurs, Brontosaurs, Triceratops, Velociraptor, Iguanodon, and Pterodactyl.

We measured with dinosaurs.

Played dino-bingo.

We enjoyed learning about the special job of a paleontologist. It was cool to learn about how fossils are made and discovered. We learned that many dinosaurs fossils were found in North America! The students used pasta to create a dino-skeleton.

Dinosaur rubbings

After learning so much about these "terrible lizards", everyone had a favorite dinosaur. We wrote which dino we would like for a pet. This activity was based on one of our favorite books, "Buying, Selling and Caring For Your Dinosaur" by Laura Rennart. The students then made a great dinosaur picture to accompany their writing.

We LOVED all these wonderful books.

Bo shared some FABULOUS resources with us this week, they helped us learn some great facts! Thank you, Bo!

Getting a great view of a T-Rex!

Dinosaur memory match

Dinosaurs hatched from eggs, we cracked open some dinosaur eggs and practice our adding skills.

On the iPads we discovered a cool app that allows you to dig for fossils! What fun!! The students dug and discovered full dinosaur skeletons.

Check out that triceratops skeleton.

Then the dinosaur came to life. Everyone loved this!

All week we worked on sequencing the steps that occur when a dinosaur turns into a fossil. The students worked hard on their writing prompt throughout the week. We made it extra fun by writing with special dinosaur pencils and rewarding our work with dinosaur stickers.

We wanted to get in on all this fossil fun. We made homemade play-dough and then used plastic dinosaurs to create "fossils".

The students worked together to mix up all the ingredients for the play-dough.

Stir, stir, stir!

Then add the color, mix it up really well!

And...FOSSILS!

We also cooked up something yummy! We made dinosaur chow, we used crushed bones (sugar), dirt (cocoa), squashed bugs (peanut butter), dead grass (oatmeal), fat (butter), and swamp water (milk).

Everyone took turns mixing up this interesting recipe.

And they gobbled it up like real dinosaurs!

Joseph brought some modern day reptiles to share. We know that dinosaur means "terrible lizard" but this lizard wasn't too terrible. And the frogs were great! These frogs were "fire-bellies", they had bright red bellies.

I was VERY thankful that Joseph kept such a tight grip on the frog!

This week we learned combination qu! Cruz brought in a quarter and Alexis and Morgyn brought quilts. Good thinking!!

Student of the Week: Cayden

Coming Up...

Phonics: Long Vowels - We'll learn that long vowels "say their name"

Math: Subtraction

Thematic Unit: Dental Health and Five Senses

Yearbooks - If you are interested in purchasing a 2011-2012 PLE Yearbook the price is $33. Please send in a check payable to "Purvis Lower Elementary" by Friday, February 3. The yearbooks will be delivered in May.

Super Bowl Celebration - Friday, February 3 - Students are encouraged to wear their favorite football jersey or T-shirt to celebration the Super Bowl.

Valentine Party - Tuesday, February 14 at 1:45 PM - Students will exchange Valentine's with their classmates. I will send home a list of our students' names for your child to address their Valentine cards. If you haven't already, please send in a shoe box. We will decorate them as mailboxes for the cards at the Valentine party.

Blog Password: Smile!

100th Day and Winter!!

2012-01-22T19:45:00.000-06:00

This week we celebrated the 100th day of school! Everyone is 100 days smarter!!

In this video the students share what their favorite activities were during the first 100 days. Enjoy!

The students dressed as if they were 100 years old. They were so cute!

We read many fun books about the 100th day. And we counted to 100 all day!

The students made a snack mix with 100 yummy treats! They counted ten of each treat, there were ten groups. Ten groups of ten make 100!

They also made 100 day hats. Each strip has 10 fun shapes, 10 strips in all make 100 fun shapes!

The students used dotters, stamps, stickers, markers, and many other great supplies to create 100 objects on their hats.

Self portraits of their 100 year old-selves!

Writing numbers to 100!

The rest of the week we learned about winter. Winter is a fun season and everyone enjoyed learning about arctic animals!

Students made a snowman glyph. They chose specific items for their snowman to match different questions, for example, blue polka dots means you have a brother, yellow means you have a sister. Both blue and yellow mean you have a brother and a sister. The students answered questions like this to create a snowman.

One of our favorite arctic animals was the penguin. Students learned many interesting facts about penguins. Ask your child why penguins are white and black, or what color is a baby penguin? They can even tell you where the penguin egg is kept until is hatches. Remember they are 100 days smarter!

Penguin snacks

Penguin handprints

We watched a webcam from San Diego Zoo of the polar bear exhibit. Very cool!

The students made a snow globe, then wrote "If I lived in a snow globe I would...". They wrote some creative answers like "...drink hot chocolate.", "...build a snowman.", "...make a snow angel.".

Then they made snowballs!!

And a snowman!

We enjoyed these fun books about winter.

We especially enjoyed the book "Snow Dance". In the story, the characters dance a snow dance to make it snow. We danced our own snow dance.

And then made it snow!!

The students worked together to make edible snowballs! (Actually they were rice krispys, but we are very good at using our imaginations!).

After we made the snowballs, we dumped them in a bag of snow (powdered sugar) and made a ball rolled in snow.

Then ate the yummy treat! Guess our snow dance really worked!

We also got to use our iPads this week, everyone's favorite center.

Practicing number words by ordering them in numerical order.

Writing subtraction sentences.

Student of the Week: Zaine

Coming Up...

Phonics: Combination Qu (as in "quilt" and "queen")

Math: Subtraction

Thematic Unit: Dinosaurs

Blog password: Roar!!

Bears and Pajama Day!

2012-01-15T14:06:00.001-06:00

This week we learned about bears! What a fun unit! We learned about bears hibernating, and how they get ready for hibernation during the fall. We also learned about other animals that hibernate and that they awake in the Spring. It was a fun week of learning!

One of our favorite websites is www.brainpopjr.com. We learned a lot about hibernation from Annie and Moby!

Making brown bears

Using the "tear art" technique to make teddy bears.

Many of our activities had a bear theme, here the students graphed gummy bears by color.

Students are creating numbers using a ten frame and teddy grahams.

The students have been practicing on correct letter formation of capital and lowercase letters. Also, they have been working hard on writing sentences. They are getting so SMART!!

A number word was written on a teddy bear, students pulled a teddy bear card and match the number word to the written numeral. Keep practicing your number words at home. :)

Measuring the capacity of containers using teddy bear counters.

Next week we will be focusing on winter, we started to get ready for this fun unit by making penguins on Friday.

Throughout the week we learned about bears hibernating, what better way to celebrate what we have learned than hibernating ourselves! We did this by having "Pajama Day" on Friday!

Everyone looked so cozy with their PJ's and teddy bears.

We learned that animals must eat food during the fall to prepare for the winter and to hibernate. We made sure we had plenty of food to make it through our winter hibernation. We enjoyed a yummy waffle and cinnamon roll breakfast!

The students took turns showing off their bears in a puppet show.

Everyone enjoyed hibernating as they all watched "Monsters, Inc.".

Karli brought her new puppy for show-and-tell.

We celebrated three birthdays this week!

Happy Birthday, Cruz!

Happy Birthday, Barrett and Houston!

Student of the Week: Danielle

Coming Up...

Phonics: Xx and Ww

Math: Subtraction

Thematic Unit: Winter and 100th Day

Writing - The students are doing a great job and putting a great deal of hardwork into their writing assignments. Continue to encourage your child as he/she continues to grow in the writing process. You will notice in their signed papers that I have included many of their writing samples this week. Praise your child for their handwork and ask them to read what they have written. They are encouraged to use "inventive spelling" (spelling the words just as they hear them). I have written the correct spelling under some of the words to help parents at home read the writing. Continue to encourage inventive spelling (except for sight words they should be learning). The more they practice, the more comfortable they will become, and the better writers and READERS they will be!

Monday, January 16 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - No school

Thursday, January 19 - 100th day of school!! Celebrate this fun day by dressing up like you are 100 years old!!

February 3 - Yearbook orders are due - If you are interested in purchasing a 2011-2012 PLE yearbook please do so no later than February 3. The yearbooks will be in full-color and be delivered in May. Make checks payable to "Purvis Lower Elementary", the cost is $33.00.

Blog password: penguins

Happy New Year!

2012-01-08T15:03:00.001-06:00

Happy 2012!!

This week we welcomed in the new year. We had a fun start back from the Christmas holidays. Students came to school on Thursday and Friday. We'll be back in full force Monday morning!

Here are a few activities we did during the two-day week.

We celebrated the new year with party hats.

The students wrote thank you notes to Santa for all the wonderful gifts they received.

The students with "Perfect Attendance" for the second nine weeks were given a special pencil from our principal.

Jacob wished for a "hound dog" for Christmas and Santa delivered! He brought Copper to school to show him off Friday.

Here a few pictures from our last day of school before Christmas. The students had a fun Christmas party!

Coming Up...

Phonics: Vv and Jj

Math: Subtraction

Thematic Unit: Bears

Monday, January 9 - Report cards go home, please review your child's progress, sign and return the following day. If you would like to request a conference to discuss your child's progress please feel free to do so. I would be glad to discuss your child's successes and ways they can continue to improve in class.

Friday, January 13 - Kindergarten Pajama Day (for Kindergarten students only) - We will be concluding the thematic unit on bears. We will learn about bears hibernating and will have fun with this by "hibernating" at school in our pajamas! Students are encouraged to wear their PJ's, please make sure they are school appropriate.

Monday, January 16 - No school, Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

Thursday, January 19 - 100th day of school! We will celebrate this by dressing up like we are 100 years old!! Students are encouraged to dress-up, your teachers will be looking very old too!

Blog Password: hibernate

Ho, Ho, Ho...It's Almost Christmas!

2011-12-18T20:31:00.000-06:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

The students practiced their number words, they pulled a number card from the Santa hat and used the dotter to mark in on the Santa beard.

They enjoyed writing with the prompt, "If Santa Claus got stuck in my chimney I would...". They made this very cute craft with their writing sample. Watch the video to hear their responses!

We ate Christmas dinner in the cafeteria on Thursday, dressed in Rudolph hats of course!

We had a fun reindeer theme throughout the week. These cute reindeer scenes are cute additions to our class.

Reindeer handprint ornaments

More reindeer, handprints for antlers.

Everyone wrote Christmas wishes on this cute Reindeer stationary.

We even made reindeer food. Everyone put a little Christmas magic in their food. Sprinkle this in your yard Christmas Eve night and the reindeer will have a tasty treat when they stop by your house!

We put the reindeer food in these reindeer bags.

Everyone's favorite activity was making gingerbread houses. The students worked in groups to make these yummy holiday treat.

We even had an extra special house sent to us from the North Pole!! Mrs. Claus and the elves made our class a beautiful gingerbread house!!

Everyone did a wonderful job on these keepsake ornaments.

This week we learned the letter D. Jacob brought donuts for snack!

More D Show and Tell - Dirt bike, photos from Rocket City DINER, and a book about Dinosaurs.

Student of the Week: Joseph

Coming Up...

Phonics - Review

Math - Review

Thematic Unit - Christmas

Tuesday, December 20 - Christmas party at 8:00 AM! Parents are encouraged to attend, the students will be singing a few Christmas songs to begin the party. Then we'll enjoy some great snacks and exchange gifts! Dismissal will be at 11:05 AM, then it will be Christmas vacation!!

January 5 - School Resumes

January 13 - Kindergarten Pajama Day

January 16 - No school - Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday

January 19 - 100th Day of School - dress-up like they are 100 years old!

Blog Password: Santa Claus

Dining With Dad and Christmas

2011-12-11T13:33:00.007-06:00

What a fun week! We continued to celebrate Christmas and we had some very special visitors this week as well!

We took our Christmas card photo on Tuesday, Merry Christmas!!

Wednesday the students invited their dads to lunch. We were happy to have such wonderful lunch guests. A few dads were unable to attend, we were happy to have some special moms in attendance too!

The students made this video on Tuesday, they shared why they love their dads.

http://youtu.be/rlUzBiP5UA0

Everyone made a special card and tie for their dad.

We love our dads!

Dads watching the video we made for them before going to lunch.

Enjoying a special lunch!

The other special visitor we had was Santa Claus! We all got to visit Santa and tell him our Christmas wishes!!

In centers this week, students played a sight word search. They chose words from the Santa hat and read them to their group. Then found the words on their Santa sheet.

Reindeer hats

Writing letters to Santa. (Parents: These letters will be in your child's folder on Monday. I know you'll be able to get these to Santa. ;) )

Ready to send to the North Pole.

We have been practicing songs all week to sing at the Christmas party. The students made a Santa puppet to sing along with them.

Christmas tree snacks.

The students used jumbo marshmallows to dip in paint and created a beautiful Christmas tree.

We enjoyed several Christmas books this week. We loved "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas".

These books were also great, they told stories about how Santa gets ready for Christmas Eve and how the elves are big helpers.

And, of course, we LOVE Junie B. Jones!

This week we learned short vowel Ee. Charleigh brought "The Elf on the Shelf" as Show-and-Tell for this great letter. Everyone loved the book and many shared about their special elves at home.

More E Show-and-Tell: Energizer for E

Happy Birthday, Danielle!

Student of the Week: Emma

Coming Up...

Phonics: Yy and Dd

Math: Larger Numbers 11-20

Thematic Unit: Christmas

December 16 - Please send your gift for the gift exchange by this Friday.

December 16 - Class T-shirt Day

Christmas Party - Tuesday, December 20 at 8:00 AM - Parents are welcome and encouraged to attend, the students will be singing a few Christmas songs that they have been practicing at school. They will also participate in a gift exchange. Please send a $3 - $5 book for your child to exchange no later than Friday, December 16. Girls should send a book for a girl and boys a book for a boy. The book should be wrapped and labeled "boy" or "girl". Thank you!!

Props Needed - One of the songs we are practicing for the Christmas party needs a few props. If you have a scarf and toboggan that you can send for your child to wear please do so any time this week. We will practice with these props and keep them at school until the Christmas party.

Blog Password: Frosty

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

2011-12-04T14:11:00.001-06:00

This week was a fun week to decorate our classroom and get ready to celebrate Christmas!

One of our first projects was to decorate our class Christmas tree.

We read the book "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" by Dr. Seuss. The was a fun book to read, the students really enjoyed this story. Although I had to remind the students that a real Grinch will not be coming to steal any of their presents on Christmas Eve!

After reading this book, the students made a Grinch. They wrote on the Grinch the following sentence, "To make the Grinch grin I would...". The students wrote things like "...give him presents.", "...help him decorate a Christmas tree.", "...be his friend.".

Beautiful Christmas poinsettias

We began many Christmas craft keepsakes, there was a lot of hand painting this week!

Decorating their Christmas trees.

This week we learned the letter Zz and the letter Cc. We read many fun books and did activities to help us learn these consonant sounds.

We enjoyed the book "If You Give A Cat A Cupcake". We made our own cupcakes from the letter Cc.

Cupcakes on Cc!

Learning on starfall.coom

C Show and Tell: C is for Cassidy, C is for cat, C is for cowboy and cow trailer.

Z Show and Tell: Z is for Zoo pet

Frosty and one of Santa's elves came for a visit too!!

What a fun week! We look forward to two more weeks of Christmas fun!

Austin brought his Southern Miss gear Friday for Show and Tell to cheer the Golden Eagles to victory. The Golden Eagles won on Saturday and are C-USA Champions!

Student of the Week: Emerald

Coming Up...

Phonics: Ee

Math: Larger Numbers, 11-20 (Practice writing your numbers 0-20 this week.)

Thematic Unit: Christmas

Wednesday, December 7 - "Dining With Dad" - All dads are invited to lunch with their child. Our class will go to lunch at 12:00 PM. Please meet in our classroom at 11:50 AM, and we will walk together to the cafeteria. Afterwards, Dads will have the opportunity to visit the "Santa Shop" with their child.

Christmas Party - Tuesday, December 20 at 8:00 AM - Parents are welcome and encouraged to attend, the students will be singing two Christmas songs that they have been practicing at school. They will also participate in a gift exchange. Please send a $3 - $5 book for your child to exchange no later than Friday, December 16. Girls should send a book for a girl and boys a book for a boy. The book should be wrapped and labeled "boy" or "girl". Thank you!!

Blog Password: Ho! Ho! Ho!

Thanksgiving Feast and Play

2011-11-22T23:13:00.001-06:00

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving. The students learned so much about the first Thanksgiving and also shared with one another what they are thankful for.

Our school held a "Reading Fair" this week as well. Our class read the book "Turkey Trouble" and worked together to complete a project board.

Watch the video as the students share what they are thankful for this Thanksgiving.

The students used yummy foods to create indian teepees!

They made many wonderful crafts and keepsakes for Thanksgiving.

Each student made a pilgrim and wrote what they were thankful for on the pilgrim.

One of their favorite activities, making pinecone turkeys! We also used these to decorate the tables for the Thanksgiving feast.

For the last few weeks the students have been working hard to learn a play about the first Thanksgiving. They took all the great things they learned about the pilgrims journey on the Mayflower, their friendship with the Wampanoag indians and the celebration of the first harvest and performed a great play.

Watch the video below to see their play!

The students performed the play for their families. Afterwards, the students enjoyed a delicious feast prepared by the wonderful parents and grandparents in our class. THANK YOU to all who helped, we are thankful to have such wonderful families!

For snack one day Kileigh and her mom brought us yummy Thanksgiving cupcakes. Thank you!

This week we got very busy on Friday afternoon performing and feasting. Everyone was not able to get a prize out of the treasure box or announce "Student of the Week". We will do all of this first thing Monday morning. STUDENT OF THE WEEK IS....JACOB!

Coming Up...

Phonics: Zz and Cc

Math: Larger Numbers, 11-20

Thematic Unit: Christmas Around the World

December 6 - Santa Photo Day - Santa Claus is visiting PLE on Tuesday, December 6. Students may get their photo with Santa for $5 (please send cash only). Students may wear Christmas-themed clothes (red, green, etc.) on this day rather than their school uniforms.

December 7 - Dining with Dad - We are inviting all dads to lunch with their child on Wednesday, December 7. Each class has a specific lunch time, our class will go to lunch at 12:00 PM. Please meet in our classroom and we will walk together to the cafeteria. Also, dads may take their child to the "Santa Shop" afterwards.

December 20 - Class Christmas Party @ 8:00 AM - Students will be exchanging gifts at the party, each child will need to bring a $3 - $5 story book to exchange. Girls will need to bring a book for a girl and boys a book for a boy. Please send the book wrapped and ready to be exchanged. Please send all books to school no later than Friday, December 16.

Blog Password: Rudolph

Thanksgiving and Veterans' Day

2011-11-13T17:51:00.002-06:00

This week we began a two week unit on Thanksgiving. This is one of my favorite units of the year. The students always enjoy learning about the pilgrims and the indians and the many traditions that began at the First Thanksgiving.

The students played literacy games that were Thanksgiving-themed at the computer center this week.

Next Friday we are hosting a feast in our classroom. We made some decorations for our classroom.

We read the book, "The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush", this helped the students understand about the Native American culture.

An indian flower based on the book, "The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush".

Indian crafts

On Thursday, the cafeteria made a Thanksgiving feast for us to enjoy. The students all wanted to enjoy the feast dressed as the Wampanoag Indians, just like at the first Thanksgiving.

On the way to the feast.

We spent much of our week learning about the first Thanksgiving. We read books and used great Internet resources, like scholastic.com and brainpopjr.com, to help us learn. We learned that the Pilgrims came from England on the Mayflower. There were 102 pilgrims and the journey lasted 65 days. The students are full of Thanksgiving facts!

We made a Mayflower of our own!

The Mayflower is sailing outside of our classroom, all the "pilgrims/students'" are taking the voyage to Plymouth Rock.

The letter of the week was Bb! What a Brillant letter!

The students wrote a sentence in their journals about things they liked that began with the letter Bb.

"I like baboons."

"I like bacon."

"I like my brother."

Bb "Show and Tell" - fooBall, Butterfly, BaseBall

Bow and Arrows

The first grade students performed their Thanksgiving themed-musical for us on Friday. We enjoyed watching them, they did a wonderful job!

We also celebrated Veterans' Day on Friday. We had a wonderful veteran, Mr. Howell Purvis, visit our class. He served in the Navy as a pilot and was also a secret service agent for five U.S. Presidents!!

Watch the video to see some of this special visit.

Happy Birthday, Austin!

Student of the Week: Houston

Coming Up...

Phonics: Uu

Math: Larger Numbers, 11-20

Thematic Unit: Thanksgiving

Friday, November 18 - Thanksgiving Feast - Our class will enjoy a Thanksgiving feast in our classroom on this day. The students have also been practicing a short play about the first Thanksgiving. The fun festivities will begin at 12:00 PM. We hope to see you there!

November 21 - 25: Thanksgiving Holidays, No School

Blog Password: Squanto

Cowboys

2011-11-06T16:10:00.001-06:00

Monday was Halloween, we had a "Fall Festival" Monday morning and a fun fall party Monday afternoon.

Fall Festival Activities

Face Painting

Bean Bag Toss

Eye Ball Drop

Hot-Pumpkin

Pin the Nose on the Jack-o-Lantern

Musical Chairs

At the fall party the parents organized a fun game of "bobbing for apples"! The students LOVED this!

Festive Snacks!

Our school continued the "United Way" fundraiser this week. The students were encouraged to dressed up for "Hippie Day" and bring $1 for United Way.

This week we learned the letter Kk, we made kites.

Kings!

The thematic unit this week was "Cowboys". Everyone loved this root in'-tootin' fun unit!

Making cactus art.

Cowboy boots

Cowboy and cowgirl art

Every cowboy and cowgirl needs a trusty horse.

We read a some fun books about cowboys.

Friday all the students dressed as cowboys and cowgirls.

Joseph, Austin, Koby, Jace, Jacob, Cruz, Gavin, Cody, Cassidy, Systre'n, Charleigh, Zaine and Alexis all had perfect attendance for the first nine weeks. Great work!!

Happy Birthday, Bo!!

Happy Birthday, Koby!!

Student of the Week: Kileigh

Coming Up...
Phonics: Bb
Math: Addition
Thematic Unit: Pilgrims and Indians

Monday, November 7 - Progress Reports will be sent home, please review your child's progress, sign and return the following day.

Friday, November 18 - Thanksgiving Feast - Our class will be having a feast to celebrate the first Thanksgiving. We will enjoy this fun meal in our classroom. We will not be eating in the cafeteria on this day. Also the students will have a short presentation of the first Thanksgiving before the feast. The festivities will begin at 12:00 PM, parents are invited to come see the short play and help with the feast.

Blog Password: pilgrim

Halloween and the Pumpkin Patch!!!

2011-10-30T21:54:00.003-05:00

This was a great week! We learned a lot at school and ended the week with a field trip to the Pumpkin Patch.

On Monday, we had a special visit from the fire department. October is fire safety month, and they taught us some great ways to be safe and prepared if we ever have a fire around us.

Sparky was there too!

Bo and Jacob were selected by the fire department as the winners of the coloring contest from our class.

This week we began our "United Way" fundraiser. This is a three week fundraiser. There are days set aside as dress-up days, the students may bring $1 and wear a special costume to school. The class with the most raised gets a pizza party!

We collect some money for United Way!

Sports Day

Camouflage Day

Wednesday was "Red Day" for Red Ribbon Week

What a perfect week to learn the letter Rr! It was "Red Ribbon Week" and we had red day AND Cruz brought his RABBIT!! We were happy to meet Smokey!

We also made some cute Halloween crafts this week.

Mummies!

These are super cute, we have gotten many compliments on these from other classes as they see them displayed in our hall. These are "Trick or Treaters", they say "Boo!" But don't be scared, when they lift up the ghost costume there is a picture of themselves underneath.

We carved a real pumpkin last week, this week they had more carving fun on the Promethean board.

They practiced their numbers with a "Spooky Shaker." They shake it up and open it to see where the game piece landed. Then write the number and draw a set to match.

Candy Corn Roll - Roll the dice with a partner, add your rolls together and eat the candy corn that matches the number rolled. A very tasty way to practice adding!

Putting numbers in order from 0-10, using play-doh as a holder.

Fun spider buckets to hold some yummy treats!

We read many fun and silly Halloween books.

Student of the Week: Barrett

As if that wasn't enough fun, we went on a field trip too!!!!

Mitchell Farms Pumpkin Patch

Enjoy all the pictures!!

Coming Up...

Phonics: Kk

Math: Addition

Thematic: Cowboys

Monday, October 31 - Students may wear their class T-shirts to school. The class Fall Party will be at 1:00 PM.

Friday, November 4 - Cowboy Day - Students are encouraged to dress like cowboys and cowgirls!

Blog password: Howdy!!

50th Day of School and Pumpkins!

2011-10-23T17:50:00.001-05:00

This week was very fun and very eventful. Tuesday was the 50th day of school. The students count each day of school, we stop along the way at milestones. The first is the 50th day of school! It is exciting to celebrate learning. Our next big number celebration will happen on the 100th day of school.

Everyone dressed in their 50's clothes!

Enjoying root beer floats!

Making records

Rolling to 50

Bubble gum blowing contest

Gavin and Logan blew the biggest bubbles!

The cafeteria also participated in all the 50's day fun!

The cafeteria was decorated like a 1950's diner.

We enjoyed hamburgers and french fries just like a diner.

Then it was time for the "Sock Hop", the students learned dances from the 1950's in music leading up to the big 50th day. They were great dancers and had loads of fun.

Here is a video of some of the great fun from the Sock Hop!

Emma was selected from our class as the "Best Costume" for all of Kindergarten!

The teachers had fun too!

This week we learned two letters. We first learned the letter Ss, everyone wore "silly socks" to school!

Jacob brought a spaceship for Ss show-and-tell.

We also learned the letter Ff, the students traced their feet and made "funny feet".

Cruz and Joseph brought flashlights for Ff show-and-tell.

We continued to practice writing this week. Also the students took their first spelling test this week, they did fabulous!!! Great work!!

The thematic unit was "pumpkins". We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin and read many great fiction and non-fiction books about pumpkins. Everyone loved learning about pumpkins and this is a great way to get ready for the "Pumpkin Patch" field trip coming up!

Making jack-o-lanterns

The students made "magic pumpkins" by mixing together yellow and red paint and creating a pumpkin.

The students used linking cubes to measure the heights of different pumpkins.

Everyone's most favorite pumpkin activity, was carving a real pumpkin!

First everyone worked together to clean out the pumpkin.

Then Ms. Marzoni carved a jolly-wolly pumpkin face!

Happy Birthday, Cody!

Student of the Week: Morgyn

Coming up...

Phonics: Rr

Math: Addition

Thematic Unit: Halloween and more pumpkins!

Spelling test will be given Thursday this week due to the field trip on Friday.

Red Ribbon Week and United Way- This week is Red Ribbon Week, this is a week that students are taught lessons about "saying no to drugs." Also, for the next two weeks students will be bringing in donations for the United Way.

Monday - Wear silly socks to "sock it to drugs" for Red Ribbon Week

Tuesday - Sports Day - bring $1 for United Way and wear your favorite sports uniform

Wednesday - Wear red day for Red Ribbon Week

Thursday - Camo Day - bring $1 for United Way and wear camouflage

Friday, October 28 - PUMPKIN PATCH FIELD TRIP!! - Students will need to wear their class T-shirt to school that day (our class T-shirt is aqua blue).

Monday, October 31 - Halloween party at 1:00 PM, students may wear their class T-shirts to school on this day.

Blog password: jack-o-lantern

Community Helpers and Letter Ii

2011-10-16T20:20:00.003-05:00

This week was a short three day week, we enjoyed "Fall Break" at the beginning of the week. But we still had plenty of time to learn all about community helpers!

The students enjoyed completing the community helper puzzle sets.

Making doctor hats

And doctor bags

Tool belts

Tasty firetrucks and traffic lights!

We read many great books that taught us some of the important jobs of community helpers. We also learned about fire safety and that we need to "Stop, Drop and Roll"!

We learned the most from the community helpers themselves! On Friday, many community helpers visited our school and talked to us about their jobs. They also showed us some of the equipment and tools they use to do their jobs. This was so exciting, the students loved learning from these special guests.

Purvis Fire and Resuce

Sheriff's Department

One of our favorite guest was this very brave police dog.

ASAP Ambulance

Bo's dad is a State Trooper, everyone loved asking questions and Bo was very proud of his dad. Mr. Jason let all the students get in the car and make the siren and horns go off! Super cool!

Pearl River Valley Power Association

Cody's dad works with the Emergency Management. He had many cool tools and lots of equipment to share with us. Cody was very proud to have his dad at school with us. Thank you, Mr. James!

Everyone got coloring books, crayons and rulers from the community helpers. What a fun day!! We are very thankful for all they do to help our community and we loved having them at our school!

This week we learned the letter Ii, Joseph and Jacob brought "indian hat" and "Ironman" for Show-and-Tell. Incredible!!

Happy Birthday, Cayden!

Happy Birthday, Morgyn!

Student of the Week: Logan

Coming Up...

Phonics: Ss and Ff

Math: Addition 0-10

Thematic Unit: Pumpkins

Monday, October 17 (tomorrow!) - We will be learning the letter Ss, don't forget to wear "Silly Socks" to school!

Monday, October 17 - Report cards will be sent home. Please review your child's progress, sign and return the following day.

Tuesday, October 18 - 50th Day of School - Wear your clothes from the 1950's as we celebrate 50 days of school. Kindergarten will participate in a Sock Hop beginning at 12:35 PM in the gym!

Friday, October 28 - Pumpkin Patch field trip to Mitchell Farms, Collins, MS - Wear your class T-shirt to school on this day.

Blog password: SILLY

Spider Mania and a Monster Mash

2011-10-11T14:55:00.002-05:00

This week we learned all about SPIDERS!! The students loved learning about these creepy, crawly creatures!

Watch this super cute video of the students playing a game show called 'Spider Mania', they learned a lot about spiders!!

They went on a spider hunt, digging for spiders, then counting how many they found and recording their findings.

Hanging spiders, these look great hanging from the ceiling in our classroom.

Spider games at the computer center.

Bo brought in a book that told us about the wolf spider and the black widow!

We created a class graph answering the question "Are you afraid of spiders?".

Most of the students voted "no" they weren't afraid, but I have a feeling they may not be so brave if a real tarantula were around!

This week we learned the letter Mm! What a marvelous letter!

Graphing the M&M colors.

Making monsters for M!

We loved the books, "Go Away, Big Green Monster!" and "Louie and the Monsters".

On Friday, we ended our fun Mm week. We had a "Monster Mash", the students made monster hats for the big Mm finale.

Marshmallows on M

This week we explored with reading and writing our own sentences. The students read these predictable sentences, "I am a ___ monster." and matched the color word with each sentence.

Then the students completed their own sentences, reading and filling in the words they could read and write. They sure did work hard!!

They read their second book for the phonics libraries at home, "Hop on the Mop". Keep practicing these books at home, remember practice makes great readers.

The students wrote a sentence from their book, they wrote the sentence "Tom got a mop.". They are working to try to sound out and write the words they can read. Everyone practice spacing between words and beginning their sentences with capital letters.

After all that hard work, it was time for the "Monster Mash" for the letter Mm!

They played "pin the eye of the cyclops".

They balanced candy eyeballs in the "eyeball drop".

Then it was time for a monster stomp, this game is much like musical chairs. The students stomp like a monster and land on a monster foot when the music stops.

We ended Mm week with some yummy "Monster Munch". We added marshmallows, Milky Way, and M&Ms. Mmmmm!

Mm Show and Tell - Marshmallows, mask, mittens, and mouth wash.

Cayden showing us "magic" for the letter Mm.

Bo lost a tooth (Ms. Marzoni is a pro-tooth-puller!) :)

Student of the Week: Karli

Coming Up...

Phonics: Ii

Math: Addition

Thematic Unit: Community Helpers

Monday, October 17 - Report Cards will be sent home, please review your child's progress, sign and return the next day.

Tuesday, October 18 - 50th day of school!! Dress like the 1950's as we have a Sock Hop to celebrate. Kindergarten Sock Hop is from 12:35-1:20 in the gym.

Friday, October 28 - Pumpkin Patch Field Trip - wear your class T-shirts

Monday, October 31 - Fall Refreshments - 1:00 PM

Friday, November 4 - Cowboy Day - Dress-up like cowboys and cowgirls

Blog password: icky

All About Fall

2011-10-02T20:38:00.001-05:00

This week was a super fun week, we celebrated the first full week of fall!! The students have been anticipating the change of the seasons as we have been learning all about fall weather and traditions.

The students continued to practice counting, reading, and writing numbers 0-10.

In phonics, we learned the letter Nn. Watch the video to see the students sing a all about this neat consonant.

We dyed noodles and made "noodle necklaces"!

Some friends brought "N" show-and-tell, necklaces, nerf football, and nails.

We also made some great classroom decorations, everyone loves our spooky door!

This week we read a few books about fall and the changing of the leaves.

Making a fall tree, with red, yellow and orange leaves. The students used their arm and handprint to form the tree and their fingerprints for the leaves.

Making fall leaves.

We also read a great story about a scarecrow, the students loved this story and learning about the farmer's harvest.

Making scarecrows

Candy Corn decorations

The students used pumpkins to measure the scarecrows. Then measured one another beside the scarecrows.

Student of the Week: Austin

Coming Up...
Phonics: Mm
Math: Review numbers 0-10
Thematic Unit: Spiders

Fall Break - October 10 & 11

Blog password: monsters

Apples and Aa

2011-09-25T18:07:00.001-05:00

This week we learned the letter Aa, we learned the short sound as in "apple". The unit this week was "Apples", so we had a great time connecting our phonics and our unit throughout the week!

Ants on A

The students ate ants on a log! (Raisins (ants), Mud (peanut butter) and a log (wafer cookie))

Completing the sentence, "I ate ants on a log!".

Play-doh A's!

A is for Apple

Apple Puppets

Singing the "A is for Apple" song with their apple puppets.

Each students brought their favorite apple to school this week. We learned many great things about apples! Here the students worked together to graph the apples, our class had the most red apples.

We read some wonderful books that told us all about apples. We learned about John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), we learned how apple trees grew throughout the seasons, how farmers pick apples at an apple orchard, and many more great facts about this delicious fruit.

One of their favorite activities was the "Apple Investigation". The students used "investigation glasses" to inspect their apples and recorded their information on the clipboards. They loved being investigators and were super smart with their special investigation glasses!

Exploring the inside of an apple.

Weighing the apples

Measuring the height of the apple and recording their findings.

Apple Prints

The best part: tasting the apple!

A is also for alligator! Students made a puppet with an alligator eating an apple.

More practice at the computer center.

Working hard learning numbers

This week the students read their first book!! How exciting for everyone!! Their phonics reader for this week was "Hot, Hot, Hot". Everyone worked very hard to sound out and read this book. They also were able to take home their phonics libraries, every other week they will get a new reader to add to their libraries. Practice these books at home, help your child sound out the words and read the book to you. The more they practice they better they will be able to read!

To conclude all the apple fun we had an "Apple Feast". We learned that there are many foods made from apples, we enjoyed apple juice, apple pie, apple butter, apple jelly, apple sauce and fresh apple slices.

*Please note, we enjoyed the apple feast after recess, you'll notice that some of us had lots of fun outside! :) *

Apple Pie

Apple Sauce

Apple Jelly and Apple Butter

Apple Juice

Fresh Apple Slices

Jace brought carmel apple suckers for us to enjoy too!

Yummy apples!!

After the feast, everyone had a favorite apple food, we then graphed everyone's favorite.

Looks like apple pie was the favorite!

For show and tell this week we had some special "A" items, Captain America, Andy's Woody, an athlete, and Atlanta Braves baseball. Great job!

Student of the Week: Systre'n

Coming Up...

Phonics: Nn

Math: Numbers 0-10

Thematic Unit: Fall

Sight Words/High Frequency Words: not, at, the, a, I, my, name, all color words (red, blue, green, yellow, orange, black, white, brown, pink, purple) and all number words zero-ten

Sight Words: Please practice sight words with your child at home, a great way to do this is by using flashcards. These are words that will be in their readers and it will help them read more fluently. Also by knowing these words it will help them begin to write and spell. As we add words at school, add words to your flashcard deck at home.

Friday, September 30 - Spirit Shirt Day - Wear a Purvis T-shirt on Friday to support the PHS football team.

Fall Break: October 10 & 11 - No School

Blog Password: Autumn